But he wasn’t alone in his brilliance, Heather and Paragon were awesome too, and that horse evokes so much emotion and excitement from the crowd – every person in the audience will remember his performance. I was asked, “When does the chestnut horse go?” by total strangers. He floats. He’s so elegant and effortless. With a year’s worth of strength on his 8-year-old frame, you can imagine him being 10 points better. He scored an 86% here. Imagine what 10 points better than that looks like. But that’s not all - Marisa Festerling rose to every occasion and refused to be overcome by her first team experience. She managed every ounce of her beloved “Frankie’s” enthusiasm to add individual Bronze to the Team Gold she shared with Steffen, Heather and Cesar Parra earlier in the week. She couldn’t stop crying with happiness and every time she would stop she would start again.
Go on USA… it was incredible. We had to loan the Organizing Committee one of our flags to complete the trio to raise up the flag poles. There was so much emotion flowing – and it was a class act to be a part of. They were pretty awesome.
Steffen and his Medal (and sombrero)
We recovered from that (and our second front page USOC newsletter photo!!) and the dressage team was gone 12 hours after the press conference. They all had a safe trip home (horses and humans) and now the attention turns to our eventers. They jogged up today and not only did they look fit, sound and ready to roll – they also looked beautiful thanks to the work of our incredible grooms. The most excitement at the trot-up was provided by a very rambunctious chestnut mare, who nearly cleared the entire venue voicing her opinions with both hind legs. More than one person got to examine her shoeing job eye level.
Shannon Lilley, Hannah Burnett and Lynn Symansky decided they looked like air hostesses in their jog outfits (if anyone else has been watching Pan Am…) and they acted out a brief skit before the jog – which included serving peanuts in the stables. This is a young team, with an incredible amount of energy. This should be an incredibly exciting weekend of eventing.
Air Eventing One Air Hostesses
We had an incredible evening of stories from our vet and farrier – Brendan Furlong and Steve Teichman… they have lived several lifetimes of adventures, many together and when they wrap up their service to the team next year – there will be enormous shoes to fill.
There will be more from the Eventing venue, Club Hippico, this afternoon.
Good luck everyone.
Joanie